RZA suggests Martin Shkreli could release $2m Wu-Tang Clan album: ‘He can do what he wants’

RZA of Wu Tang Clan has spoken about selling the one and only copy of the group’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Shaolin’ album to Martin Shkreli.

The rap group approached their 2015 album with a unique angle, making just a single copy of the record and selling it to the highest bidder. The album was eventually sold to Martin Shkreli, the infamous businessman who purchased the rights to life-saving drug Daraprim and raised the price from $13 a pill to £750.

Speaking about the sale in a new interview with Bloomberg, RZA said he is happy with having sold the album to Shkreli, saying: “What we’ve done is historical, and you can’t remove that.”

Now that Shkreli owns the album, he is at liberty to use it however he likes. RZA suggests that he could allow fans to hear the album if he so chooses. “He bought it, he can do what he wants,” he told host John Heilemann. “The beautiful thing about art, from my standpoint, is that it has no discrimination.”

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“If Mr. Shkreli feels philanthropic, he has the power to do something really cool, you know what I mean?” RZA added. “He could do something that would allow more people to hear the record.”

However, one popular piece of trivia about the album was dismissed in the interview. “Bill Murray’s not in the contract,” RZA said in regards to a rumour about a clause in the album contract which alleged that Wu-Tang could reclaim the album at any point if they stole it in a heist involving the Groundhog Day actor.

Releasing a Wu-Tang Clan album may not be top of Shkreli’s agenda in 2016. As reported, the trust fund manager was arrested on suspicion of stock fraud in December. He has been charged with illegally taking stock from his biotechnology firm Retrophin Inc and using it to pay debts from another company he owns, MSMB Capital Management. If found guilty he faces up to 20 years in prison.